Quarterbacks: D

Kiehl Frazier made his first collegiate start and there were some bright spots and low spots.

Frazier made a beautiful throw to Emory Blake early in the game for his first career touchdown pass.

When Frazier felt pressure from the Clemson defense, his accuracy faltered badly. When given time, Frazier threw the ball pretty well. He showed off his arm strength on a couple of throws, including the touchdown pass to Blake. He also looked pretty comfortable under center.

Unfortunately, in the second half Frazier felt a lot of pressure and was flushed out of the pocket on many occasions. He rushed his throws and could not connect on some big plays.

It would have been good to see Frazier make more of an effort to distribute the ball to other receivers. Blake and Lutzenkirchen were the only two receivers to get looks.

Offensive Line: C

The young offensive line was a concern for Auburn coming into this season. Three Auburn offensive lineman were making their first collegiate start.

Tunde Fariyike got thrown into the fire and had to fill the shoes of All-American Reese Dismukes. Fariyike's name was not called that much tonight. That is a good thing. Only one time comes to memory that there was a bad exchange from the center to the quarterback.

The other offensive lineman were a pleasant surprise for most of the first half. Clemson began to get consistent pressure on Kiehl Frazier in the second half. Frazier was flushed out of the pocket and rushed his throws, leading to accuracy issues. The offensive line allowed two sacks of Frazier.

There were times where Tre Mason and Onterio McCalebb had some big holes to run through. Other times, not so much.

At least three of Auburn's six penalties came from the offensive line. The Auburn offense is just not good enough to give up free yards to the defense and put themselves in long distance situations.

This game tonight will be a good building block for a young Auburn offensive line. Coach Jeff Grimes will have a lot of teaching points for his group next week.

Linebackers: D

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

The Auburn linebackers may have nightmares of Andre Ellington for the rest of the season. There were a lot of missed tackles by the linebackers tonight.

The play that they will probably see will be Andre Ellington keeping his balance as Jake Holland let go of him thinking he was down. Once Holland let go, Ellington was off to the races. It looked eerily similar to the Michael Dyer run in the 2010 BCS National Championship game. Ellington finished the night with 26 carries and 231 yards.

Daren Bates picked up where he left off last year and once again led the Auburn defense in tackles with 14. He also had an interception. Jake Holland added 11 more tackles.

The linebackers did a good job at the initial point of contact. After that, things got bad. The linebackers must finish the tackle all the way to the ground and that was not happening. Ball carriers were simply bouncing off. Simple fundamentals were lacking in that regard.

On the bright side, there were a few blitzes that Brian Van Gorder dialed up and the linebackers looked extremely quick and aggressive.

Coaching: C

There were not very many head scratching decisions in this game. There are definitely some things that Gene Chizik's staff will need to correct before heading to Starkville next week.

The Tigers committed six penalties for 38 yards. As mentioned earlier, this Auburn team will not be good enough to give teams free yards.

You can be sure that Brian Van Gorder was not expecting to give up 500+ yards in his return to the college game. He did not see any Chad Morris type offenses in the NFL. As he promised, the defense was much more aggressive in blitzing.

Better halftime adjustments were expected from Brian Van Gorder and Willie Martinez in the secondary. Auburn defenders continued to play very loose coverage in the second half. Do they not trust their defensive backs in man-to-man coverage? It does not appear that they do.

Gene Chizik showed some good clock management skills late in the first half when he gave Clemson very minimal time to do anything before the half expired.

Scot Loeffler's play calling was decent. He gave Kiehl Frazier some plays that helped him build his confidence early on in the game before letting him loose on the 54 yard touchdown play-action pass to Emory Blake.

The Auburn coaching staff earns a C for their efforts in the loss to Clemson.